I've used Linux for as much only I'm a tad more humble. Mentioned more than a dozen times in the kernel git log. Not a big achievement but kinda shows I'm not just a bystander.
You've never said how much time you've wasted fixing Linux or making software work. Must be a non-issue I guess.
Exceptionally humble, indeed.
> You've never said how much time you've wasted fixing Linux or making software work.
This comes up often and I'm always fascinated by the implied assumption that time isn't wasted fixing Windows or MacOS computers and making software work on those systems. The age-old "No, I will not fix your computer!" is not a Linux meme - in 99% of cases it refers to a Windows machine.
We can trade anecdata until the heat death of the universe, and in fact you've nicely listed many of the pro/con points in your articles. However having read both versions (current/technical and final), I must agree with parent. This is just a rant from someone who likes Windows more.
I also want to call out your "solving linux" section (in the technical article). You've listed basically the entire Ubuntu playbook (which is, btw, a UK company, not an African company). Mark "poached" debian developers (DDs), poured millions of his own money into it, spearheaded many of the desktop-specific innovations (now supplanted by other software, but Ubuntu provided the initial push), created an app store, did an enormous amount of work popularizing Linux specifically for the desktop, was the first to start "officially checked and approved" hardware list, etc.
And the results show even if we don't attribute them to Ubuntu today, and even if we're using alternatives: Linux desktop today is a much smoother experience than 20 years ago.
So, while I can sympathize with many of the points in your technical article (https://itvision.altervista.org/why.linux.is.not.ready.for.t...) even if I do not agree with them, the linked one really seems like distillation to a "I like Windows more" rant.
And no I've spent far less time "fixing" Windows. In fact I don't remember doing that ever. I've had multiple cases when Windows stopped booting and in absolute most of them I just had to reinstall the system from scratch. That's all "I've wasted".
Linux on the other hand?
"It works for you everything is made up in the article".
Never mind how once I had to fix a glaring issue in the Linux kernel which rendered tens of thousands of systems unbootable and which took me over 24 hours of hard work to unravel.
https://bugzilla.kernel.org/show_bug.cgi?id=206175
Yeah, indeed I've never had anything like that in Windows in 30+ years that I've been using it. Never once a Windows update rendered the system completely dead. And I'm not talking about my system, I talking about hundreds.
Lastly I'm just a poor Linux kernel bugzilla maintainer who actually overlooks a lot of stuff and sees a staggering number of fixes in every stable Linux release.
I follow way too many bug trackers and LKML as well. It's all good, please disperse.
That's one way of dealing with it.
> Never mind how once I had to fix a glaring issue in the Linux kernel which rendered tens of thousands of systems unbootable.
You didn't have to fix it, you could've booted the old kernel. You chose to debug the issue and help. That's commendable, but do you think people (who work on Windows or hardware, or in IT departments in any organization) don't do that for Windows as well?
> And I'm not talking about my system, I talking about hundreds.
Is it tens of thousands, or hundreds?
> Lastly I'm just a poor Linux kernel bugzilla maintainer who actually overlooks a lot of stuff and sees a staggering number of fixes in every stable Linux release. I follow way too many bug trackers and LKML as well.
Well if you're Linux kernel bugzilla maintainer, it's natural that you see many more Linux bugs than Windows or MacOS bugs. Again, commendable that you choose to participate, help, and make it better! You choose to live on the bleeding edge, and so you bleed. But that's far from typical Linux desktop user experience.
> Could you be specific about what constitutes "a rant"?
Well, your entire comment is a rant: https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/rant
You're obviously very passionate about, and involved with, Linux. But you also seem to hate it so I'm confused why do it? Buy a Mac, be happy, live and let live, etc.
Windows can be reinstalled, Linux bugs never go away by themselves.
> You chose to debug the issue and help.
No, people don't do that in Windows because Microsoft has much better QA/QC. Not a single Windows update since 1998 has rendered my system unbootable. Microsoft is certainly not perfect and Windows sometimes has regression but those normally affect very few people.
> Is it tens of thousands, or hundreds?
Windows installation user base: 2 billion. Linux: 40 million. Have fun with mental gymnastics.
> You choose to live on the bleeding edge, and so you bleed.
There's a huge number of bugs affecting "stable" Linux distros that use "stable" software including the kernel. Linux bugs are not specific to the bleeding edge but they are more prominent.
Here: https://bugzilla.kernel.org/show_bug.cgi?id=219638
> Well, your entire comment is a rant: https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/rant
This is not a counter argument and I will not waste any more of my time with you. Try using the dictionary argument with your children, "You are a retard, my boy! Why? Look it up in the Merriam Webster dictionary, that's why".
The amount of BSOD I've seen and unfixable issues after spending hours googling and browsing windows shitty support sites are just the tip of the iceberg.
Windows is utter trash and the only reason it won is because of the monopoly it established, forcing everyone to use it, hardware manufacturers to support it and once the dominance was established, you can't escape it.
MacOS is literally only used with hardware lock-in. People don't choose it. It's forced onto whoever chooses to overpay for an Apple computer.
The only reason Linux won't win the desktop is because it doesn't have a monopoly to support it.
These discussions that pretend any of this is due to merits of one OS over the other are moot. It doesn't matter at all when it comes to who or how many people use it. These are all determined by external factors.
Last time I did it was in the Windows XP SP0 days.
> The amount of BSOD I've seen and unfixable issues after spending hours googling and browsing windows shitty support sites are just the tip of the iceberg.
When was the last time you got BSOD? I've not seen them after Vista.
> The only reason Linux won't win the desktop is because it doesn't have a monopoly to support it.
"Win"? Start with software compatibility. There's no one Linux, there's a billion of incompatible distros that make it impossible to run old software.
> These discussions that pretend any of this is due to merits of one OS over the other are moot.
API and ABI compatibility are swear words to you, I get it.
I'm sorry if you don't care about those, the world will shrug you off. No other OS has this madness.
> by external factors.
Yeah, for Linux fans it's always someone or something else. The fact that Linux is a bug-ridden mess of software with no compatibility and no stability isn't an issue of course. It's because Microsoft/Oracle/NVIDIA actively interfere with Linux. Or aliens? Must be aliens.
Keep your ad ridden Windows mate, you clearly deserve it. Not worth my time to answer this low level of a reply.
I've been running Linux exclusively since RedHat 5.0 (no, that's not RHEL, that's more than a decade earlier).
This entire article is 1000% true. Every word of it. You can "opine" and "disagree" with it as much as you want. It's become too damn popular in the western world lately to opine about anything.
Feel free to opine about gravity, just don't fall off the top of a 10-storey building.
BTW this is why the entire world is running "ad-ridden"/"privacy-invading" Windows.
People run it because
1. Windows doesn't get in the way and allows them to run their software.
2. Windows is rock stable and doesn't break randomly after every upgrade (sans occasional conflicts with third-party software here and there affecting ~0.05% of people).
3. Windows is simple.
Linux has no implied compatibility, it's full of regressions, it's complicated as hell and it still has poor HW support. Yes.
> Windows is rock stable and doesn't break randomly after every upgrade (sans occasional conflicts with third-party software here and there affecting ~0.05% of people).
What? I've lost count of the amount of times that I've had to restore botched Windows updates. It has gotten better lately, but it still happened more times than I've had to deal with update issues on my Linux installation. And I run my Linux near the bleeding edge where, in theory, everything should break all the time, right? Well, it doesn't.
My point stands. People don't choose their OS. It's chosen by the hardware manufacturer, their employers or their requirements. I'm gonna repeat this because it's extremely important: people don't spend a single second choosing their OS.
If you want to game, you have to use Windows (yes I know about Proton and love it, but mainstream online games require Windows). If you want to use your computer for work, you need Office. Even with Google Docs, people in my country simply default to the Office suite. Again, not because they choose it, but because it was already chosen for them by the monopoly that is already in place.
Aside from Office, you have all of the other specialized tools like the Adobe suite and many others that force you to use Windows again.
Windows doesn't have anyone competing with them. Their monopoly guarantees they can get away with anything. It's not a competition.
Windows 11 is a great example of this. Nobody asked for it. It's garbage with more ads in it. It wasn't built to improve the system for users, it was built to sell ads and force people to buy new computers. Being the only option allows them to do all of this. Windows simply doesn't need to add, change or remove features because of competitors since there aren't any.